Oh Well, They Deserved It Anyway
by Sarah1281
Summary: Laiarda Mahariel is eager to use her new status as Grey Warden to right the wrongs of her past...just sometimes she gets a little confused as to who exactly she, personally, needs to seek vengeance on. At least they were all horrible people, right?


Oh Well, They Deserved It Anyway

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

Note: I've never experienced this quite that badly but I've certainly gotten same-species playthroughs mixed up before…

Laiarda Mahariel had been waiting for this moment for almost a year now. Finally, after all the sacrifices it took to get here she was finally going to get the vengeance that she so desperately sought. She knew that her parents would be proud of as she'd managed to combine both duty and justice on her path leading up to this one glorious moment. "I'm going to kill you for what you've done to my family and I'm going to enjoy it!" she growled.

Arl Rendon Howe stopped sneering at her for long enough to look confused. "What I did to your family?"

That was almost too much for Laiarda. It was bad enough that he'd gotten away with his despicable crimes for over a year and now he was going to deny that they even happened once they were alone and he – or she, technically, but mostly he – was moments away from death? It took all of her hard-won self-control not to slit his throat then and there. "Don't play dumb with me! I keep reliving the night of the attack over and over and over again...and I still can't stop Iona from opening the door. I'm starting to think her death was just natural selection...maybe I'll have better luck with what's-his-name..." she mused, inadvertently straying slightly from the topic.

For his part, Howe didn't look any more aware of his crimes against her family. "Look, I don't even know you. Whatever I did, I'm sure it wasn't personal." Of course Howe, being Howe, couldn't deny that he hadn't done anything to her, particularly as she was an elf and there was that whole business with him arranging for the elves in the Alienage to be slaughtered and then the survivors to be sold off to the Tevinter Imperium.

"Not personal? Not PERSONAL?" Laiarda screeched, her hand twitching for her weapon. "You were a guest at my father's estate and then you had him and the rest of the household butchered in the night! How can that not be personal?!?!" It seemed like a reasonable question to Laiarda. Howe, on the other hand, still thought she was crazy.

"Do any of you have an idea what she's talking about?" he asked, addressing himself to her presumably saner companions. Then again, if they had actually willingly agreed to follow the girl then that was far from guaranteed.

Oghren took out his flask and took a nice long drink from it. "No, but as long as she keeps supplying me with alcohol and violent deaths, I don't care," he declared.

"I have better things to do than worry about its inability to keep its past straight," Shale informed them, sounding very much like she barely cared enough to even answer the question.

Thus it fell to Alistair to try and sort this out. "Is this like when you had to slaughter the entire carta for leaving Leske locked up for over a year and for trying to have you killed, when you had to gut Bhelen for framing you for fratricide, when you had to kill Jowan because Lily deserved better and he was too stupid to live, and when you had to kill Vaughan for raping your cousin and having your other cousin locked up for over a year despite none of these people having an idea who you were?" he asked wearily. Vaughan's death had occurred so recently that his body was likely still cooling and Bhelen and the Carta's deaths were only two days apart so he was quite familiar with these misunderstandings.

Laiarda cocked her head to the side, thinking back. She had assumed that Bhelen, Harrowmont and, well, everyone else in Orzammar had pretended not to know her because she'd been exiled for Trian's death and so legally didn't exist in Orzammar. And, of course, as a casteless she had never legally existed before becoming a Warden, she had killed most of the people in the carta who remembered her from her own days as a member, and Jarvia was too busy ranting about being Queen of the Casteless to bother acknowledging her. Some allowances had to be made for Leske as he had been locked up for a year and probably wasn't all there – not that she was certain he was to begin with – but it would have been nice to see her sister again. Still, as Bhelen's baby mama she was probably very busy and she'd never consider working for her backstabbing brother so it wasn't like he would go out of his way to facilitate a reunion. And was it too much to hope for that Rica wouldn't be too upset for how that turned out?

Soris, of course, had the same excuse Leske did since he'd been locked up for just as long. Poor guy…the whole reason she had accepted blame in the first place was so he wouldn't have to suffer for being one of only two decent people in the Alienage…Shianni might have been more social since she hadn't seen her in a year but to be fair to her, she was a little preoccupied by the 'quarantine' and then shaken by the revelation it was actually a slaving ring and so everyone that had gone in but not come out was gone for good and could very well be sacrificed for a blood magic ritual.

Then there was the situation with Jowan. She loved him like an idiot brother but honestly, it seemed like that boy had no common sense. She'd been a mage for two freaking hours and he'd already pressured her into risking the wrath of the Templars and getting sent to Aeonar? Some friend he turned out to be. No wonder she sold him out to Irving and felt completely vindicated. Of course he made her 'help' Jowan anyway to screw over Lily, which she felt awful about, but it wasn't like she didn't try to talk him out of it! She assumed that Jowan ignoring her was because after he found out that she tattled on him he decided she was dead to him and Irving and Greagoir (and for that matter Cullen) kind of had more pressing matters to attend to than chatting about her life in the Wardens, what with the recent abomination infestation. And Lily really did deserve better. Even if she didn't WANT to go with him once she found out he was a blood mage (which he should have been honest with her about) then he should have at least gotten her safely away from the Templars and the threat of Aeonar before parting ways with her.

"Possibly," Laiarda admitted sheepishly. "This might be a strange question but what was my race and background again?"

"Dalish Elf," Oghren replied. He would think it was a bit weird she needed to ask but he sometimes got drunk enough he needed a reminder as well. And once he had it he usually needed another drink. Laiarda didn't seem drunk but the Dalish, or what he'd seen of them anyway, were kind of…strange.

"Dalish Elf, huh?" Laiarda mused. "I see...wait, who do I hate again?"

"Pretty much everyone, I think," Alistair replied. He stopped. "Except maybe for the dwarves. I don't think you really care one way or another about them."

"So I must kill every human I can in revenge, got it," Laiarda concluded. Vengeance for what she wasn't quite clear on but the other Dalish she'd met were so freaking bitter it had to be something big and she was getting quite good at this vengeance business.

"I think I like it so much better now than when it thought it was a noble," Shale remarked, interest creeping into her voice for the first time. "I would also like to add that as the Dalish camp outside birds are no doubt hated by them as well."

"What about me?" Howe spoke up. "Since apparently I never did anything to you-"

Laiarda shrugged apologetically as she raised her sword. "Sorry, shem. It's nothing personal, I just intend to bring death and destruction to your species."

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